


Catching Meteorites

by thegrimshapeofyoursmile



Series: To Build A Home [4]
Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: Asexual Character, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyship Roadtrip, Siberia, ace!Yuriy, anger management issues, mentions of bdsm dynamics, nothing says foreplay like a good old fist fight am i right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrimshapeofyoursmile/pseuds/thegrimshapeofyoursmile
Summary: Yuriy breaks with monogamy, Boris breaks noses and Kai breaks free of habits. Between Moscow and meteorites, something new and exciting happens. Or does it?Can be read without knowledge of the first 3 parts of the series.
Relationships: Hiwatari Kai/Yuri Ivanov | Tala Valkov, Hiwatari Kai/Yuri Ivanov | Tala Valkov/Boris Kuznetsov | Bryan Kuznetsov, Yuri Ivanov | Tala Valkov/Boris Kuznetsov | Bryan Kuznetsov
Series: To Build A Home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909858
Comments: 16
Kudos: 20





	1. Dronino

**Author's Note:**

> The chapter titles are all names of places in Russia (or former Russia, depending of the date of finding) where meteorites have been found.

Yuriy found Boris at the scrap yard where he was breaking things with Falborg at a very remarkable speed. 

For a while Yuriy just watched. It had been a long time since Boris had last gone so ballistic that he had ripped his leather jacket off the hook and headed for the scrap yard. Perhaps Yuriy should feel proud of that achievement. 

Boris took hold of an old sink and, with a scream of utmost rage, hurled it against a car skeleton where it shattered into a thousand pieces. 

Pride certainly felt different. 

Yuriy waited for a moment before making Boris aware of his presence by stepping out of the shadows. Instantly, Boris whirled around like a bloodhound that had scented a trail. A buzz not unlike a tornado hitting bricks was Yuriy's only warning; instinctively he threw himself to the side. Just a second later, Falborg crashed into an old shopping cart next to him and clattered on the floor where it continued to spin almost angrily. 

Yuriy exhaled. Then he raised his head and stared at Boris. "Are you insane?" 

Boris just snorted as Falborg accelerated and accelerated and then shot into the next pile of garbage. His owner, meanwhile, turned his back on Yuriy. The redhead could clearly see the tension in Boris's shoulders and arms and knew that it did not come from the physical strain of destroying things. It had been a long time since Boris had been so angry. Even longer since Yuriy had been the cause of it. 

"Borya," Yuriy said and took a step closer. "You did a real good job at ruining things, but now it's time to come home again." 

"Shut the fuck up," Boris said so fiercely as if he had just been waiting for Yuriy to give him a reason to lash out even more. He turned to Yuriy, his eyes stormy and wild, while his hands were clenched tightly around the necks of two old, empty beer bottles. "If anybody's done a great job at ruining things, it's you." 

For a moment, Yuriy pressed his lips together very tightly before he spoke again. "I'm honest with you because I don't want to lie to you, and you tell me that I ruin things?" 

"Hell yeah you do!" Boris shouted and threw one of the beer bottles against the nearest wall. Yuriy twitched at the loud, shattering noise, hated himself for it, forced himself to stop and cross his arms in front of his chest. "Kai fucking Hiwatari, Yura. Always. I’ve always known. But I didn't want to believe it - not after I finally got you for myself." He exhaled sharply and threw the second bottle. Yuriy felt a wafer-thin splinter running across his skin and urged himself to stand completely still. "I thought you were serious when you said you felt the same way about me as I felt about you, but that was a lie. It’s always been Kai fucking Hiwatari from the moment you first saw him." 

"Oh, what the fuck, Boris," hissed Yuriy, who couldn't contain himself anymore at that point. "Spare us the melodrama. It wasn’t a lie." 

"Then you’ve never really understood how I feel about you," Boris said fiercely, "because I couldn't even imagine falling in love with anyone else but you." 

Silence fell. Yuriy's mouth was very dry. He was the first to turn his eyes away so that he could not to be swept away by the storm on Boris's face. As he drove his fingers through his hair, he could hear Boris sighing deeply. Falborg's buzzing became weaker before it was cut off entirely when Boris let the Beyblade jump back into his hand. 

"If at least it was just sex that you wanted," Boris then said, "but it's not even that. Or if it is, then I'm going to smash your face in right now, because then you can go fuck yourself with your 'Oh Borya, I’m not interested in sex by default most of the time'-" 

"Fuck you," hissed Yuriy as the heat shot up his cheeks. "Not everything in life is about sex – not for me at least, because you can't tell me here that you haven't thought about what it would be like to fuck Kai.” 

"That's not what this is about," yelled Boris and hit the skeleton of the car with his fist, only to rub the ball of his hand with an angrily muttered curse immediately afterwards. It was hard to tell who he was most angry at: himself, Yuriy or the general circumstances. "Stop fucking twisting the words around in my mouth! You come up to me, say super casually, 'By the way, Borya, I have feelings for Kai, too' - Kai fucking Hiwatari!” He exhaled sharply. "You can't expect that people won't fly into a frenzy and ask questions!" 

"You haven't asked a single question so far," Yuriy pointed out bitterly, "you've just thrown around some accusations and washbasins and that's it!” 

"Oh, you want questions?" Boris barked. Within seconds, he was close enough to grab Yuriy by the collar, not paying attention to the hands that Yuriy instinctively shoved against his chest. One always only remembered that air could kill as well when it had already spiraled to unimaginable heights. But Yuriy was used to breathe in thin air and brave the storm. 

They assessed each other quietly for a long moment, then Boris asked with an uncontrolled tremor in his voice, "Do you still love me?” 

There was no one who could expose himself so wholly, so unabashedly to Yuriy as Boris sometimes did. It was a gift that Yuriy tried to treat with the care it deserved, so he swallowed every automatically defensive, sharp comment. Instead, he forced himself to remove one hand from Boris's chest and place it on his cheek. "Boris, that was never in question." 

"For once in your life, please just say yes or no." 

"Yes, then. I still love you." Yuriy slowly stroked his cheek, up and down, up and down, until Boris audibly exhaled. 

"What do you want from Kai that I can't give you?" he then asked a little calmer than before, even though the faint tremor was still in his voice. 

Yuriy hesitated for a moment. He didn't know how to put it and so the words didn't come easily, but finally he said, "The way you see it, it’s as if I wanted to fill in any gaps by having him around, but that's not it. There are no real gaps you’re responsible for.” 

For a moment Boris seemed to want to flare up again, then he visibly controlled his breath and finally said with forced calm, "I just don’t get it. What is it you want, then?” 

"I’d like to involve him more in my life, because I feel more for him than just for a friend. And maybe you're right that I’m an asshole for only telling you know. But it wasn't always that way with him for me, no matter what you think. And I'm not good at this shit in the first place." 

"You're really not," Boris said not very friendly and took another deep breath. His grip on Yuriy's shirt loosened a little. "Fuck you." 

"Maybe later," said Yuriy, "if you don't make your exit now." 

"I'm not letting you go," Boris said without taking his eyes off Yuriy, and while something in Yuriy's chest expanded so much he could hardly breathe, he added, "Even though sometimes I wish you'd make it easier for me.” 

"I'm sorry," Yuriy said honestly. He hesitated for a second, then wrapped his fingers around Boris's and looked at him. "Can we go home and talk about this again in peace?" 

"What does Hiwatari say about all of this?" 

"He doesn't know yet. At least I haven't spoken to him yet." Yuriy took a deep breath. "I won't do anything if you're not on board. I won't jeopardize us for some half-baked fantasy when it's completely impossible in your eyes." 

"Fuck you," Boris repeated once more with feeling. But then he wrapped his arms around Yuriy and pressed him against himself so hard that his ribs cracked. Yuriy dug his fingers into his back, lifted his head towards him and slid his lips questioningly across his cheek until Boris kissed him with a deep, rumbling noise, again and again. His eyes still held storm when they finally separated a little breathlessly and looked at each other, but Yuriy was no longer worried that he would be torn apart by it. 

"All right," Boris then said, "let's go home and talk about it. I really hope for your sake that you've thought of something clever."


	2. Chinga

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> miliy = Russ. „sweet boy“ (kinda. I comes from the Russian word for honey)

"I'm in love with you," Yuriy said.

They were sitting at Kai's kitchen table when he said it, and Kai was drinking his second cup of coffee that morning. He was tired; he wore a shirt that couldn’t exactly be called fresh; he wondered why he could never say no to Yuriy when it really mattered.

He lowered the cup in his hands. "Are you drunk?"

Yuriy raised one eyebrow, but didn’t seem that bothered by his reaction. "No."

"Then you're just insane," Kai said. His heart was doing somersaults he wanted to blame on the caffeine, but the caffeine he was actually used to. What he wasn't used to: Yuriy voicing feelings that had always simmered between them, even though they had never officially acknowledged them. And there were good reasons for that. "You're with Boris."

Yuriy nodded and drank his black tea, which was strong enough that it could have raised the dead.

"You are happy with Boris."

"There‘s no doubt about that."

Kai pursed his lips and looked at him without a word, talking only through his eyes. Yuriy returned his gaze with a long and wordless look on his own, then he took another sip of tea.

"I wanted to tell you," he finally said, "because I want to be honest with you. No, I have to be honest with you because I'm tired of pretending nothing is wrong. There always has been something. And I know that you feel it, too."

"You're a weirdo," Kai said, shaking his head and clutching the coffee cup in his hands like an anchor. "God, Yura, why are you telling me this?"

"I just told you why. What is your problem?"

Kai stared at him. "What's my problem? Did you just listen to me?" He pushed the cup away, a wave of anger suddenly forcing its way through him. "That's so typical of you."

"Typical?" Yuriy repeated. Something twitched in his face. Kai couldn't tell if it was confusion, anger or a smile.

He didn't care either, because the longer he thought about the situation Yuriy had gotten him into, the more his bile rose. "You arrogant, narcissistic bastard.“

“Takes one to know one, I guess,“ Yuriy said. Now there was definitely a small smile tucked in the corners of his lips. 

Kai wanted to throttle him. Maybe he also wanted to wrap his arms around his neck, and that perhaps was the fucked up thing about all this. Still, he said quite sharply, “Honesty cuts deep sometimes, Yura, it can cut you to the bone. I didn't ask for your fucking honesty, I didn't give my consensus on that. It's obvious that you hang out with Kuznetsov, he doesn't recognize merciful lies even when they bite him in the ass-"

"Kai," Yuriy said, pushed the cup aside and reached for his hand just to hold it. Yuriy's fingers trembled - barely noticeable, but still there. Kai looked at it, distracted from his tirade, then into Yuriy's face and found his eyes very bright. It took a lot of courage to tell the truth.

Kai felt the fight leaving him. He bit his lips, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. For a moment, there was only silence except the constant ticking of his kitchen clock. He wished for a third cup of coffee; he wished for a clean shirt; he wished for the strength to kick Yuriy's ass out the door when it mattered.

"Tell me I'm wrong and you don't feel that way about me," Yuriy said quietly, "then we’ll know where we stand, I’ll fully accept that and we don't have to talk about it anymore.“

"Fuck you," Kai said with great feeling and without opening his eyes, "I can't do that.“

"Why not?"

"Because it wouldn't be true. And now we can't pretend that it is anymore, either."

"Oh," Yuriy said. The smile in the corners of his mouth, gone the moment he had reached for Kai‘s hand, returned and gently bloomed. "Well, all is well, then."

"Did you hit your head too hard somewhere," Kai asked incredulously, "did a few too many brain cells die off in that coma? What's good about me being just as stupid as you are? You have a boyfriend and I may be an asshole, but I'm not a homewrecker!"

Yuriy shook his head. "I don't want to break up my relationship either. Boris knows I have feelings for you. I've talked to him about it."

"What the fuck?" Kai whispered harshly, too stunned to yell. "What the hell is wrong with you? You just walked up to your boyfriend and told him that you have a crush on someone else? Kuznetsov is a bastard, but that's quite a dick move, Yura.“ He muttered a Japanese curse under his breath. “I need a cigarette."

"I thought you quit!"

"You make me want to start again," Kai hissed. "What the hell is this shit? What are you thinking? I have no desire to be a side piece and I don‘t want you to leave him for me. I don‘t even want a fully committed, normative relationship-“

"Kai." Yuriy lifted Kai's hand, pressed his lips against his knuckles and nestled his cheek in the palm of Kai's hand. Kai's mouth was dry. The words left him; he took a deep breath, wishing Yuriy to hell as well as on his lap. Yuriy rarely exposed himself the way he did now. 

"I want you," Yuriy said softly, looking at him, cheek still nestled against the palm of his hand, "but I want Boris, too. I know I'm asking a lot. But I believe I'm worth it."

"You‘ve always been arroganz," Kai murmured and sighed deeply. Then he gently stroked Yuriy's sharp cheekbones with his fingertips until he lowered his eyelids in contentment. "You're a greedy bastard, Yura. You always want it all, no matter what the cost."

"As if you were so different, miliy," Yuriy said softly, yet with a challenging undertone. 

Kai was quiet for a moment. "What does Kuznetsov say about all that?"

"Smashed a few sinks and yelled at me, then we talked about it."

"And what came out of it?"

Yuriy hummed a little. "He's not happy."

"No way. Couldn’t imagine that, since he's my biggest fan and everything," Kai said sarcastically.

"Shut up," Yuriy replied with amusement in his voice. "You might be surprised, but he's willing to try an experiment."

"Oh God," Kai said instantly alarmed, "what are you up to?“

Yuriy gave him a wolfish grin. "Well, I was thinking – shut up, yes, I do think occasionally. Listen. If everyone's on board to at least give it a try and see what we all need, want and don't want at all, then it would be good to change the scenery a little for that. The perfect opportunity for this is a meteor that recently crashed over Siberia. I wanted to see that one, anyway, and I don‘t care much if I go on my own or take you two with me." Yuriy let his words sink in for a moment, then he added overly dramatically, "We're going on a road trip."

"Only if Kuznetsov doesn’t drive," Kai promptly said.

"If that's the only problem," Yuriy said generously, "that can be arranged.“


	3. Sikhote-Alin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for mentions of OCD activities in the beginning, namely obsessively washing hands.  
> Seryozha = Russian nickname for Sergey.  
> Vanya = Russian nickname for Ivan.

The premise was very simple: A week's road trip through the Russian countryside in a specially rented all-round jeep which, unlike Boris' refurbished car, could cope well with even the stoniest roads. Stare a bit at a meteorite impact hole, take pictures, get some souvenirs, then drive back home. In between all of that: Sorting out where they all stood with each other and whether what Yuriy had in mind was even remotely feasible. Simple. 

Yuriy wondered what the hell he had been thinking.

Goddamn shitty feelings. He hadn't chosen to develop feelings for two people at once, he didn't even know where the capacity for that came from. But here he was, with a tight chest and a restlessness that caused him to heave all the gym bags into the jeep without any help from Boris. He rearranged the bags again and again, went through his packing list for the fourteenth time, then marched back into the kitchen and turned on the water to wash his hands. Then again. He took a deep breath, tried to sort his head, but his heart drummed painfully in his chest until he could hardly breathe. Stupid, all of it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It had been his own goddamn idea after all. 

After five minutes, Boris gently took him by the shoulders, literally hoisted him up and put him down by the kitchen entrance, then threw him a towel and placed himself between Yuriy and the sink. With arms crossed in front of his chest, he watched Yuriy dry his hands for an eternity, then he asked, "What's wrong?“ 

"Have I made a mistake?" Yuriy blurted out, lowered the towel and looked at him. 

"Oh, now you’re scared?" Boris asked, raising both eyebrows. "First you’re all big talk and now you chicken out?" 

"What if I lose you both with this?" Yuriy asked.

Boris' eyes were very soft. "Shut the fuck up, Yura. We'll try that shit. You won't lose us both right away because of this, even if your little experiment fails." 

Yuriy was very aware that there Boris gave him a lot of things he did not really deserve. He did not deserve his unwavering loyalty, nor his patience in many aspects of their life together. Boris scolded and cursed and punched holes in walls or sinks, but he was there and pulled along, his companion for so many years now.

For a moment, Yuriy clenched the towel painfully tight. Then he dropped it, stepped over it and wrapped his arms around Boris' neck to press himself tightly against him. Boris moved towards him instantly, pulled him even closer, buried his hands in Yuriy's hair and breathed deeply with his nose pressed against his neck. 

"What's this all of a sudden, do you have feelings right now?" he asked softly. His words stroked over Yuriy's skin, they were that soft, and he closed his eyes, then gently kissed the velvety patch of skin behind Boris' ear. 

"Maybe a little," he murmured, allowing Boris's hands to wander over his shoulders, down to his hips until his hands clasped firmly around them. He knew that sometimes Boris needed to be able to really grab him, to feel him. Sometimes, that was difficult for him. It wasn’t right now.

For quite a while they remained quietly in their embrace. Boris stroked Yuriy's hair while Yuriy put his cheek against Boris’s collarbone, closed his eyes and listened to the heartbeat that vibrated strongly through Boris' chest. Then Yuriy slowly loosened their embrace; Boris reluctantly released him and his hand lingered in the small of Yuriy’s back. 

Ivan entered the kitchen, stopped in his tracks and changed his gaze back and forth between them. "That's really gay," he finally said, "get out of my yogurt." 

Yuriy rolled his eyes and moved a little aside so Ivan could scurry between them to the refrigerator. "Can you make it a week without us?" 

"Oh no," Ivan said sarcastically, stood on his tiptoes and fetched the yogurt cup from its place at the top fridge shelf where Boris had deliberately placed it to annoy him. "What are we going to do without you? Without the smelly boxing gear everywhere and the screams of rage when you throw away just a single receipt? Heavens, how can Seryozha and I survive one week of peace and quiet? I'm close to tears already!" 

"You can deduct all those receipts from your tax bill, you ungrateful ass," Yuriy muttered angrily. 

"My boxing gear doesn’t smell," Boris said indignantly. 

Ivan fetched a spoon, tore off the yogurt lid and patted first his ribs, then Yuriy's, as he walked past them. "Bring me something nice for a souvenir, or I'll bust your head." 

"He's always so friendly," Yuriy said to Boris, who just shrugged and flicked a red strand from his face. 

"Vanya got food," he said, "we're only getting Hiwatari. I think he got the better deal and shouldn't complain."

Hiwatari was already waiting in front of the apartment agency where he was staying for a while. Kai's actual apartment and his main place of work were still in Japan, but his company had begun to strengthen economic ties with some Russian companies in recent months. Kai still kept a low profile, but it had led to him being here more often for a week or two - too short for his own apartment, too long to make a hotel profitable in the long run. Therefore, he rented an apartment for those weeks since that was cheaper than a hotel and offered more space, and so far he was satisfied with it. That was quite alright with Yuriy. 

He rolled down the window and waved at Kai. The man looked over the rim of his sunglasses at the jeep for a moment, then at Yuriy, before finally giving him a barely noticeable smile and grabbing the small suitcase next to him, marching determinedly to the trunk. Boris, also armed with sunglasses and sitting in the passenger seat next to Yuriy, crossed his arms in front of his chest. Yuriy knew full well that he was watching through the rear-view mirror as Kai stacked his suitcase next to their bags, then closed the trunk again and opened the door to the back seat without comment to drop into the space behind Boris. 

"Kuznetsov," Kai then said neutrally. 

"Hiwatari," Boris said just as neutrally. 

Yuriy eyed Boris, then Kai, then he asked, "Does anyone else here feel like a standoff in a Western? 

"The guns aren't out yet," Kai said dryly. 

Boris snorted. "Don't get your hopes up, Hiwatari, my gun will definitely stay in my pants for the time being."

"Okay," Yuriy said loud enough to stop any further argument for which Kai had already opened his mouth with a vicious expression in his eyes. Damn it, was he the only one who thought the air was thick enough to cut through with a knife? Apparently, Boris had already forgotten his assuring words about working it out in the kitchen. Absolutely typical. "Are you ready for Siberia?" 

"I was born ready," Kai replied. 

"Right," Boris said sarcastically, "not like you almost died in Lake Baikal once, nature boy. Ice is not really your element, is it? It's a good thing that it's summer, but I packed some water wings just in case." 

"So good of you to look after me," Kai replied with an almost purring voice, "how maternal! It must be all those anabolic steroids, they make you so feminine, don't they?" 

"This car is just a rental," Yuriy said sharply as Boris made a serious effort to throw himself backwards and wring Kai's neck, who just grinned sweetly at him from his safe place in the back seat. "If blood gets on these seats, I'll break your necks, I swear by everything I hold sacred." 

"Just a little slap, Yura, it won't leave a mark, I swear," Boris said, never letting Kai out of his sight. 

"You can try if you really dare," Kai immediately said. "I'll take you down without even taking off my sunglasses, Kuznetsov.” 

"I'll slap you so hard that they’ll come loose anyway!" Boris roared. 

Yuriy grabbed him by the neck and held him tight, then stared Kai down. "You two calm the fuck down now and stop this monkey business. Or I'll kill you both and bury your bodies where nobody will ever find them, do you understand?“ He shook Boris until he got a reluctant grumble as confirmation before Boris shook his hand off and turned back to face the front. Then he stared at Kai until the man rolled his eyes and nodded. 

"Fine," Yuriy said, taking a deep breath and facing the road again. A one-week road trip through Siberia, just the three of them. Looking at meteorites and sorting out feelings. Simple. 

He started the engine and was already dreaming about the bottle of vodka he had packed as a precaution.


	4. Kainsaz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for:  
> \- mentions of kink dynamics (no actual description)  
> \- light sexual content (no kink, but involving an ace person) 
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely feedback, I am so delighted to see that some people like this story. <3

"That was not cool, Yuriy," Boris said in the evening.

They spent the night in a motel with two rooms connected by a connecting door. At the moment, that door was firmly locked from both sides. Changing something about that wasn’t very likely.

Yuriy had been waiting for Boris to say what was on his mind all along because it had been pretty clear that there was something. He looked up from his gym bag from which he had just pulled a smaller bag containing his toothbrush and everything else he needed and raised one eyebrow. "Please elaborate."

Boris crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You gripping my neck. Right in front of Hiwatari's eyes. What the fuck? I’m not a dog that misbehaved."

Yuriy paused. It took him a moment to remember the situation this morning Boris was talking about, then he grimaced slightly. "I didn't think about it. It was an automatic reaction."

"That really only makes it slightly better," Boris said with still audible anger, but something in his face softened a little. "That's none of his business. In the end he’ll get the wrong ideas about what he can and cannot do, and I don't want that."

"I understand that," Yuriy said, and with a deep sigh he ran a hand through his hair, then put the bag aside to sit at the edge of the bed. After a moment, Boris gave up his rigid posture and sat down next to him, so close that their shoulders were touching.  
  
Yuriy looked at him from the side. Rediscovering and re-evaluating how he looked at Boris had been one of the most exciting aspects of a romantic component in their relationship for him. He had thought he knew everything about Boris, and had rarely been so wrong as he was in that regard. You could never really know a person completely, there were always parts to miss. But the addition of new relationship elements and, yes, their attempts to combine Yuriy's disinterest in sex with Boris's need for physical contact had caused them both to experiment with BDSM. But that included ways in which they could break each other - very quickly, very simply, from one minute to the next. Things like that could happen between people that trusted each other enough to dare to touch wounds in the quiet hope of not only opening up a new level of intimacy, but also healing a little by sharing intense moments of intimacy like that. There was no one, no one in the world that Yuriy trusted as much as Boris. And it was a great gift that, conversely, he could also be sure that Boris trusted him without any reservations - although not blindly, never blindly.

Yuriy raised one hand and gently stroked Boris's cheek with his fingertips, down his neck. The weathers was warm, and the warmer it got, the less need he had for touching. But this wasn't necessarily for him, although he did get something out of it. His reward was to feel Boris relax as Yuriy gently caressed his neck where he had grabbed it a few hours ago.

"That was insensitive of me," he said softly. It was the closest to an apology he could bring himself to.

Boris hummed and turned a little until he could put his head on Yuriy's shoulder without interrupting his touch. Yuriy put his chin on his head and closed his eyes. He could feel Boris' powerful, firm heartbeat vibrating through his arm and ribs.

"I don't care if you do it in front of Vanya or Seryozha," Boris murmured after a while, "I'm not even sure if I would give much of a a fuck about it in front of strangers. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I want to give you everything. But this is Hiwatari." He took a deep breath and seemed to struggle with himself for a few seconds. Yuriy waited patiently with his eyes closed until Boris finally continued, "I feel like I have to defend my territory anyway, that didn't make it any better.“

"You don't have to defend your territory."

"You can tell me that a thousand times and theoretically I’ll get it well enough, but that doesn't make it any easier, Yura. I'm not a head person. And before you say anything, I know I said we'd do this experiment, and I still stand by that. It doesn't have to be contradictory."

Yuriy sighed and let his fingers wander up and through Boris' short hair. "Are you doing this because you're afraid of losing me? I told you--"

"No, not necessarily." Boris exhaled. "I want to see you happy. My problem is probably only that I can't see how Hiwatari, of all people, makes you happy. I can't help but think he's an asshole."

"We're all assholes, Borya."

Boris' laugh vibrated through Yuriy's chest. "Yes, but everyone of us is a special brand of asshole. And you're _my_ asshole, I don't know if another one does it for me. But I'll try for you."

It was not unexpected when Boris lifted his head and kissed him. Yuriy moved towards him, they met halfway, he felt Boris' strong, big hands on his shoulder blades. They kissed for a while until tension slowly seeped out from the muscles in Yuriy's shoulders, then he allowed Boris to pull the t-shirt over his head, but put a hand on his in warning when Boris tried to reach for the buttons of his jeans as well. "Not today."

Boris paused and examined him. "Not at all?"

"I didn’t say that." Yuriy gently took his face into his hands and pressed a kiss on his forehead. "But I don't like to be touched much today."

"Alright then.“ Boris visibly pondered his choices for a moment. "Will you hold me?"

Instead of an answer, Yuriy repositioned himself on the bed until his back was against the wall, then he reached for Boris and pulled him between his legs. After he took Boris' shirt off, they kissed again. Boris kneeled before him, wrapped his arms around him and made a harsh sound as Yuriy dug the fingernails of one hand deep into his shoulders. He opened Boris' lips with his own and Boris' pants with his hand, swallowing his lover’s gasp as he closed his fingers around his length and Boris trembled towards him. The moment did not last long. Yuriy realized that he wasn't in the right mood to do much in sexual regards to Boris either, so he gently changed strategy, pulled his hand out of his pants and dug it into Boris' back as well to pull him closer. By now Boris knew him well enough to understand the subtle hint. He pressed his cheek against Yuriys, pressed himself against him and let his own hand wander down.

"I'm here," Yuriy whispered against his temple with his eyes closed, stroking the baby-hedgehog-soft, short hair in his neck and kissing a trail from his ear down to the corner of his mouth. Boris groaned, a sound like a sliding mountain slope, hunched up his shoulders and pressed against Yuriy as if trying to crawl inside him, somewhere between his heart and his bones. As if he hadn't already been there, Yuriy thought and breathed deeply against Boris' cheek while holding him tightly, as if he wasn't to him like the blood he needed to stay alive.

***

Afterwards, Boris fell asleep relatively quickly - on Yuriy's side of the bed, his head on Yuriy's lap while he stroked his head. This made the buttery-warm feeling in Yuriy's chest fade a little bit, since he knew that it was almost impossible to get a sleeping Boris out of his place, but he had to manage somehow because he couldn't sleep on the wrong side of the bed. His first success was when he got Boris' head off his lap. It then took him almost ten minutes to move him twenty inches to the side, which hopefully would be enough. While Boris continued to snore peacefully, Yuriy realized that he was far too awake to sleep now. As quietly as possible, he took his room keys, cell phone and wallet to step through the motel corridors down to the courtyard.  
He was not surprised to see Kai sitting cross-legged on a bench, barely illuminated by a lamp above the nearby entrance and with a glowing cigarette in the corner of his mouth. A cat that had been curiously stroking around him until then took off when Yuriy approached. Kai looked after it with a sigh, then looked at Yuriy and raised an eyebrow.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"I see you didn't go to boarding school for nothing, with that sharp intellect," Yuriy noted and dropped himself beside him. Kai's knee grazed his leg, but neither of them made a motion to put more space between them.

"Do you want one?" Kai offered with a gesture of his hand on the cigarette packet next to him. When Yuriy shook his head, he smiled a little. "Still not smoking?"

"Counter-question: Didn't you want to quit?"

Kai sighed again. "You‘ve asked me that before. I still want to. But most days it's either smoking or mass murder, and I'm not ready for prison yet."

Yuriy made an indefinable sound, put his head back and looked up at the sky. Here, far from the city, the night sky spread out over them like a diamond-studded cloth onwards to infinity. How easily the human eye could be deceived by outer appearances, he thought; how easily one could assume that stars were cold when they did nothing but burn, burn and shine until the bitter end. He looked at Kai, who looked back over the glow of the cigarette tip. In the sparse light his eyes were almost black.

"Can I ask you something?" Kai finally asked quietly. When Yuriy nodded, he remained silent for a long time, pulled his cigarette and then breathed out. "Why do you want me? Is it just the sex?"

Yuriy couldn't help snorting. "Believe me, sex is the last of my reasons." He saw Kai frowning and wondered if he wanted to have this discussion now. Finally, he rubbed his face. "It doesn't do that much for me ... but that might be a discussion for another time."

Kai remained silent. Then he asked: "If it's not that, what is it?"

Yuriy thought for a moment about how to best describe it. They looked at each other in the dim light. He wanted to take Kai's hand, but as long as his heart was beating so painfully hard in his chest, he didn't dare.

"Do you know that feeling," he finally said quietly, "when you look at a person - and you want to see everything about them? To feel them as much as you can? You would love to break their ribs apart and burrow into their chest, and hold their heart in your hands just to protect it?"

At this point, Boris would have shown him the bird and advised him to go back to therapy. But Kai just nodded slowly, instinctively understanding what Yuriy meant. It was hard to say whether that spoke for or against him.

"And that's what fascinates you? Is that why you want me? To see all of me?"

"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of the reasons."

Kai didn't take his eyes off him. "What if there are things I don't want to show you?"

"That's okay. Even if you don't show me everything, I will still learn new things about myself."

Kai looked surprised, then tilted his head a little. "What do you mean?"

"Boris and I have learned to be gentle with each other," Yuriy said. Now he found the courage to put one hand gently on Kai's. "I honestly never thought we could do that, be gentle with each other like that. And if Boris and I are already learning new things with someone who has been with us half our lives, what can we both learn from each other?"

Kai looked at him for a long time. Then he smiled slowly, almost tenderly, and entwined his fingers gently with Yuriy’s. "Sounds exciting."

“It is,“ Yuriy said and lightly squeezed Kai‘s hand. Kai squeezed back, confidently and without a trace of hesitation. They sat there for quite a while and gazed up into the night sky. It was quiet between them, but there was no need for words in that moment. Right now, only for now, everything already had been said.


	5. Seymchan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING for  
> \- anger management issues (Boris)  
> \- violence (a physical fight)

The day Boris broke Kai‘s nose, it was raining.

Boris had actually thought that he had it under control. They had been on the road for two days and were halfway between Moscow and the meteorite impact site. Maybe they could have made faster progress, but in the end, the journey mattered more than their destination, and so they took their time. For an entire day, Boris felt that he could handle Kai, especially since he seemed to have decided to back off a bit. Therefore, the second overnight stay in the middle of the Siberian pampas was much more free of discussion than the one before.

He didn't know exactly what it was that made him so testy on the third day. But at some point they stopped in a village to refuel and stretch their legs, and Boris disappeared into the gas station store to get them all - yes, even Kai - sandwiches and drinks. When he came back, Yuriy was sitting relaxed on the edge of the open trunk and Kai was leaning next to him. They had their heads stuck together, so close that the edges of their sunglasses touched, and Kai's fingertips moved gently up and down on Yuriy's exposed arm as he spoke to him in his soft voice of fascination.

"305,775 kilometers," he just said, "that's how far you can see into the universe on a good night. Do you have any idea how incredibly far that is? The Andromeda galaxy we can sometimes see is 15 times 10^18 miles away from us!"

"How much is that in kilometers?" Kai asked amusedly.

Yuriy blinked at him over the rim of his sunglasses. "Give me a pencil and a piece of paper and I'll write it out for you."

"Here's a pen. You can write it on my arm."

"All zeros?"

"All of them," Kai confirmed, and there was a raspy, sensual undertone in his voice that made Boris' blood boil - not necessarily in a negative sense. But not necessarily in the positive sense either. It was enough to drive him up the wall.

"Food," he said loud and clear, whereupon Yuriy and Kai looked up and then both reflexively caught the sandwiches he threw them. He walked past them, close enough to bump Kai with his shoulder, then moved far enough away from them to call Ivan.

"Well, is anyone missing a body part yet?" Ivan inquired optimistically as always.

Boris snorted. "Not yet. But Kai is performing a dangerous balancing act on my nerves."

"Isn't that what he always does?" Boris literally saw Ivan sitting on his bed, his eyes rolling. “Are you all already there?“ 

"Day after tomorrow we were to be at the impact site."

"And then home again for the same amount of time? That means I'll have a whole week's rest from you all. Especially since Seryozha is hardly ever there."

Boris perked up. "What? What in the hell‘s he doing?"

"Yeah, how dare he have a life of his own," Ivan said sarcastically, "that asshole. I don't know what he's doing, I'll ask him next time he's back home. Did you call for any specific reason or did you just want to prevent yourself from committing murder?"

Boris growled in reply because he couldn't tell what the answer to that question was and scratched the back of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yuriy wiping a crumb off Kai‘s cheek, and he took a deep breath to keep down the fiery anger that was trying to explode out of him. Fucking hell, he thought he had it under control by now. What good were all the years of fucking therapy if it only took one too deep look out of Kai fucking Hiwatari's ember eyes to drive him up the wall?

"What’s he even done?" Ivan wanted to know.

"Nothing," Boris grumbled with another glance at Yuriy and Kai, who were handing each other napkins. Boris took another deep breath. "Is it silly that I would rather Kai was still the same self-centered jerk from a few years ago?"

Ivan was silent for a moment. Then he said very soberly, "Nope. I can understand that."

"Oh yeah?"

"Sure," Ivan said, and Boris saw him shrug before his inner eye. "That would be easier. Much, much easier. But Borya - do you realize that it could also help if you allowed yourself to like him sometimes? Because we both know you find him funny occasionally, so just go with the flow, dude."

"Thank you, Dr. Papov."

"That's 7900 rubles, Boris Petrovich."

Against his will, Boris broke out into a hyena-like laugh. "Fuck you, you goblin."

"You'd like that!"

They exchanged a few more well-meaning insults, then Boris hung up. When he returned to the jeep, the restlessness had still not left him. Yuriy took one look at his face and refused to let him drive, which was probably a good idea, but at the same time intensified the pent-up feeling in his chest. A conscious part of him was aware that he was escalating without any reason. The rest of him not only watched the train that was himself derail, but also waited hungrily for the impact and the explosion. Unlike before, he could hardly concentrate when Yuriy spoke while driving, and Kai's voice was like a red flag. His mood deteriorated just as quickly as the sky above them grew darker and darker from heavy clouds. Finally, it started raining and Yuriy, who for some reason had a special respect for aquaplaning, cursed. He caught himself waiting for the slightest movement from Kai, the slightest reason to detonate the bomb.

And Kai gave him a reason.

But only after Yuriy had parked in the next godforsaken little village in front of its only guesthouse, which also seemed to be the inn of the village.

"Wait here," Yuriy said and marched in through the pouring rain.

Instantly, Boris ripped open the car door and climbed out of the vehicle. Anything, anything was better than sitting in a car alone with Kai in silence for minutes. The air had immediately become too narrow for him. Now he seemed to have too much of it; the storm rushed in his ears as the rain poured down on him. His heart burned in his chest as if he was running a marathon. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe down deep into his stomach, then out again as he counted slowly from twenty-one to twenty-six.

Behind him he heard the slamming of a car door. The storm seemed to drive into his hands like the devil into his soul. Boris clenched them into fists and pressed them to his own chest, biting the insides of his cheeks until he tasted blood.

"Boris," Kai calmly said behind him, "what the fuck is your problem?“

A part of him whispered at him to let it rest. Unfortunately it was only a small part.

The rest of him whirled around and hissed, " _You're_ my fucking problem.“

Kai raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, as stupid and snotty as you‘ve been acting the entire time, I'm not the problem here."

The water was dripping off his hair and nose, soaking his clothes, but Kai did not seem to care. He stood there with his arms crossed, looking at him almost bored, as if Boris was a toddler that could not be taken seriously, as if he was nothing, as if his emotions and thoughts were nothing more than a leaf in the wind of Kai's journey.

"Wanker," Boris ground out and rammed his fist into his face.

A crackling sound, audible even through the heavy rain. Kai made a tortured noise, his hands instinctively flying up to touch his face - then his eyes flamed up, two will-o'-the-wisps in a curtain of water, and he approached him with quick steps, pushing him hard against his chest with both flat hands.

"I'm not your goddamn punching bag, Kuznetsov," he said harshly, "but if you want to get punched, you'll get punched.“

Boris had once tried to explain to Yuriy what the anger felt like. He had described it as a red veil of mist that lay over everything and everyone, and with electricity running through his whole body, urging him to get rid of I as quickly as possible. It was not without reason that his therapist had concentrated primarily on rehearsing the redirection of these impulses, a redirection into the positive, creational.

Jumping Kai and pressing him into the mud was neither positive nor creative, but it felt just as good in that red, misty moment.

The thing was that Kai had no idea about de-escalation of this kind. He probably didn‘t even think about de-escalating and placating Boris because he gave Boris as good as he got, not holding back in the slightest. When his fist connected with Boris's eye, a bright, unforgivingly clean pain exploded in his head. They interlocked, rolled through the mud like two unconsciously wedged boars - and then, fluently, from one minute to the next, Boris felt his physical being painfully clearly – he felt every inch of his body, and it was a physicalness that Kai shared in a very similar way. Guided by this feeling, he turned the nameless, screaming impulse that wanted to tear Kai into a thousand pieces into something positive. Something creational.

He dug his fingers into Kai's cheeks and neck and let his lips crash on his.

Teeth tore lips open. The taste of blood flooded tongue and mouth. Kai, muddy and with blazing eyes, tore at his hair and surged up towards him. He was wild, and Boris wanted, oh, had he wanted all along? Was that what Yuriy saw in Kai, that wildness of a faraway, constantly burning star? Boris got an inkling of it in blood and breath and a tremor that gripped them both.

Then a firm hand grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him back with a jerk.

The veil of mist tore apart. Boris stayed on the ground, almost dazed, trying to get his breath under control, which couldn't keep up with the missing power. Yuriy towered above them both, his blue eyes flashing with cold rage and something Boris couldn't interpret. He pushed them both apart, then wiped the damp hair from his face. Boris looked at Kai, who wiped blood and water from his face and turned his head as if he felt Boris' gaze on his skin. He returned it without shyness, without anger. Yes, there were the ember eyes again, burning with an almost playful, challenging smile on his beautiful, destroyed face.

For a moment no one said anything. The rain tirelessly poured down on them and the pain in Boris' eye turned into something dull and unpleasant. He tried to wipe the mud from his arms, only making it worse.

Then Yuriy took a deep breath.

"I leave you alone for ten minutes and you‘re at each other‘s throats. Can‘t even say whether you want to fight or fuck," he murmured, massaging the root of his nose. Boris glanced at Kai and thought that he couldn‘t entirely say what option he would prefer more, but kept from commenting. It was just as well because Yuriy finally squared his shoulders and decisively ordered, "Fine. Apparently it’ll bother you less than I feared that there was only one room left. In you go. Shower first, and then we'll talk about what the hell just happened here."


	6. Tchelyabinsk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *singsongs* Dumb boys figuring shit out-!
> 
> This is the last real chapter, the next one will be an epilogue. :3

For some reason, Kai assumed that Yuriy would grab them by the ear and drag them into the room to give them a run for their money. Instead, he realigned Kai's broken nose with a sharp twist of his wrist, a very ugly noise and a lot of cursing on Kai's part. Then, after the flow of blood had dried up a bit, Boris and he trotted after Yuriy in silence like two wet dogs, completely drenched in rainwater and mud.

The room was nothing special, but comfortable enough. There was a wide bed and a couch that had been pulled out and made into a third bed. Behind the windows, the shadows of the Siberian firs swayed in the stormy darkness. None of the people inside paid much attention to them.

"Shower," Yuriy said, pointing to Boris. "You first."

For a moment Boris made it seem like he was going to protest, but Yuriy gave him such an angry look that he scrunched up his face a little and then silently trotted into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Kai watched as Yuriy rummaged through a gym bag and handed Boris fresh clothes through the door before closing it and nodding to Kai.

"Get undressed," he commanded.

Kai raised his eyebrows. "Aren't you even going to buy me dinner first?"

He saw with amazement that a hint of color was creeping onto Yuriy's pale cheekbones. Behind them, the shower turned on, the sound mingling with the rain still pelting against the window panes. Yuriy took a deep breath, massaged the root of his nose, then turned away without a reply. Suddenly he looked tired, tired enough that Kai didn't feel like pestering him anymore. So he just sighed deeply and slipped off his boots, lining them up beside the door, before he moved on to unbutton his soiled shirt. He felt Yuriy's gaze on him. The hair on the back of his neck slowly raised. He breathed deeper, fought down the prickling sensation that came to him so quickly from the adrenaline that had been released from the fight. When he looked up, they both held still for a long moment, as if on guard, while they looked at each other.

"The pants, too?" asked Kai quietly.

Yuriy blinked, then nodded abruptly. "While you're at it."

"While I'm at it," Kai repeated, grinning in amusement, but he did as instructed. He tossed his pants to his shirt and then flopped down on the bed, only to curl his lips into a smile when he saw Yuriy, who rarely if ever drank, pull out a vodka bottle, open the cap, and take a very hearty swig. "Rough day, eh?"

"Shut up," Yuriy said, taking another sip. "So?" he then asked bitingly, "How was it kissing Boris?"

Kai's eyebrows went up. "Jealous or what?" He laughed briefly, and not very happily. "That would really be the cherry on top of everything.“

"No," Yuriy said icily, ran a hand through his hair, then grabbed a well-worn tin box from his gym bag and sat down next to him with it.

The bottle was set down on the nightstand. He was so close that their knees touched and the rough fabric of Yuriy's jeans scraped across Kai's skin. Yuriy opened the box, took out a cotton ball and disinfectant, and soaked the former in the latter. Kai held still as Yuriy raised his hand and gently dabbed his lower lip, chasing the pain that pulsed, low, within. He barely breathed; instead, he silently fantasized all the more intensely about sliding onto Yuriy's lap and pressing his aching lips to his until Yuriy's long fingers curled into his hair. Yuriy lowered his eyelids a little, as if he knew exactly what Kai was thinking. He paused - the cotton ball was pressed against Kai's lip harder than necessary, but Kai only had eyes for the way Yuriy's long, dark lashes brushed across his cheeks like shadows.

The bathroom door opened. Boris came out, bringing a gush of steam with him. He had put on the sweatpants Yuriy had handed him, but the rest was gloriously naked except for a towel carelessly draped around his neck. For a moment he paused on the doorstep; Kai felt it more than saw it. Then he started moving and settled on the bed behind Yuriy, reaching for the bottle and taking a generous swig of vodka as well. His eye was almost swollen shut and it almost seemed like it was getting darker with each passing second, but he didn't seem to be overly bothered.

Yuriy put the cotton ball aside and closed the box. While he pressed his fingertips against his closed eyelids with a deep inhale, Kai and Boris exchanged a glance over his bowed head. Kai had not forgotten what it had felt like to kiss Boris. The memory burned in his nose and on the split lip that Yuriy had dabbed only moments before. Now he bit down on it, tasting the distant, coppery echo of blood. Yes, there was a way. Boris and he might have his differences, but it wasn't irredeemable, not by a long shot - and given the look Boris was giving him at that moment, he was quite sure the latter was thinking similarly.

"So," Yuriy said, as if guessing his thoughts and glancing up, "you guys don't seem to hate each other that much after all, huh?"

"Never said Hiwatari wasn't hot," Boris said. Kai watched as he placed his hands surprisingly gently on Yuriy's shoulders and then stroked up and down his arms with long, slow movements, as if trying to warm him up. His gaze, however, remained fixed on Kai, as did Yuriy's. "And neither can you. I saw that fuck look right there."

"The fuck look," Yuriy repeated slowly. His lips twitched.

"The look you gave him, like he was the nail you were dying to hammer," Boris said without blinking an eye. “Which is rare enough that I couldn‘t help but notice.“

Kai scratched his upper lip in an attempt not to laugh at Yuriy's resigned expression. "Well, I think he'd have a suitable hammer in his pants."

"The man gets me."

Yuriy rubbed his face. "Do I like this sudden fraternization? I feel like I should be grateful, but I don't know yet if I like it."

"You really can‘t ever be pleased." Kai felt the tingle on his skin again as Boris, without taking his eyes off him, brushed back a red strand and then slid his lips over the outer line of Yuriy's ear. Yuriy closed his eyes, visibly exhaled, and tilted his head a little to give Boris better access until he whispered, clearly audible to all, against Yuriy‘s skin, "I saw how much you want to kiss him."

Yuriy opened his eyes. His gaze burned to Kai's core, hitting him completely unawares in its force.

"Yes," Yuriy murmured, and Boris pressed against him a little more from behind like a protective bulwark. “But it‘s not only that. It‘s not even …“

“I know,“ Boris murmured. “I know. But you gotta start somewhere, right? Would be a nice gesture, wouldn‘t it?“

“It would be more than that,“ Yuriy said.

“I know,“ Boris repeated and sounded almost gentle.

Kai had the feeling that he should have more problems with being talked about without being talked to, but the short exchange was quite enlightening and their eyes never left his face, so he had nothing much to complain about. In any case, he thought that he understood a little more now. There was silence for a while as all three of them contemplated what to do.

"Well," Boris finally said, and then gave a bone-deep sigh that made Yuriy stiffen a little. Before he could turn to ask the question that was clearly on his lips, however, Boris had already reached past him and extended an arm to Kai, now grabbing him by the wrist to pull him closer.

"Come on, Hiwatari," he said softly. "Kissing Yuriy is fucking great."

Kai looked at him. This was a side of Boris Kuznetsov he had always suspected might exist but had never seen - a deep generosity that perhaps only Yuriy had known like this before. It made him want to be a little less of a bastard to the man, and so he licked his lips and said, "I'm not going to take him away from you. I never wanted to take him away from you."

"I'm right here," Yuriy reminded, but his words held no heat.

Boris pressed a kiss to the crook of Yuriy's neck, digging his fingers a little into the flesh of his arms. Then he looked up, straight into Kai's eyes, and said, "Stop being so gay, saying all that shit, and kiss him already."

"You do understand that you're more or less contradicting yourself right now."

"I don't mind breaking your nose again, asshole."

Kai realized he was grinning. Then he moved closer until he was actually almost sitting in Yuriy's lap. Yuriy looked at him with an inscrutable gaze, raised his arms and pulled him closer until Kai could feel his breath on his lips. For a moment they remained like that, so close to each other that Yuriy's heartbeat vibrated against Kai's ribs.

"My comet," Yuriy said so softly it was not much more than an exhale holding an almost brutal tenderness, and kissed him.

Kai could hear Boris exhaling very heavily, but the rest of his body was focused on Yuriy, Yuriy kissing him, and kissing him, and kissing him, Yuriy who didn't seem to want to let him go. Kai tangled his fingers in Yuriy's shirt and clung to him, sliding closer, opening his lips and heart without another thought. It was so simple. Oh, it was so simple. And Boris had been right, he had been absolutely right. Kissing Yuriy was fucking great. He was completely here in the moment, putting every fiber of his being into that kiss with Kai, as if it was the only thing that mattered.

Breathless, he interrupted the kiss long enough to lean his forehead against Yuriy's. He felt Yuriy's fingers on him, delicately stroking his back, and drew breath before saying harshly, "You said sex doesn't give you that much."

"Mostly," Yuriy said. The blue of his eyes was dark and hungry. "Right now I'm interested, though perhaps for different motivations than you."

"Other motivations...?"

"I want to know you," Yuriy said. His voice was very soft and very intense. "I want to know you, inside and out. I want to see everything, everything you give me. It's not so much physically motivated, it's ..."

"A heart-on," Boris helped out as Yuriy visibly struggled for the right words. Yuriy snorted in a mixture of amusement and resignation, but didn't correct him, so Boris grinned triumphantly and added, "You'll know when he doesn't feel like being touched."

"And now you feel like it?" asked Kai. When Yuriy nodded, Kai took a deep breath. Then he looked at Boris. "You know him better than I do. Up for showing me some things he likes?"

When Boris' eyes flashed, Kai knew he had made the right decision. It was amazing how much the fight seemed to have helped in some way, as if it had untied a knot. For the first time since their journey began, Kai felt like all the cards were on the table. Of course, not everything could be solved overnight ... but Kai had the feeling that something was happening between the three of them, something important, something integral, and that they were just taking the first steps towards it. And he found that the idea of it filled him with anticipation and a certain tingle. He looked at Yuriy, whose hunger had brought them all together in the first place, and bit his lips. God, he was in love with him, maybe even more than that. And it was so easy at that moment.  
"Come on," Boris said softly, reaching for his hands and directing them under Yuriy's shirt, and Yuriy was firm and cool and good, and Kai couldn't get enough of him.

"Kiss me again," he whispered, and Yuriy did.

It wasn't the last time that night.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe it took me this long to translate and upload this short thing of an epilogue. I apologize.
> 
> There are more installments of this series to come as soon as I find time to translate them. Come talk to me [on Tumblr](https://thegrimshapeofyoursmile.tumblr.com/) about this series and Beyblade in general if you like!

Ivan knew the peace was over when he could hear Boris's rumbling footsteps in the stairwell. A little later the door was unlocked and immediately flung open against the wall with a loud bang, followed by a brief rebuke from Yuriy. Ivan, pausing with tiny watchmaker's tools over a pocket watch he was repairing, remained sitting in his room and listened. Luggage rumbled to the floor in the hallway, then several feet shuffled out of shoes. And then it was suspiciously quiet for a moment, until someone sighed in a way that caused Ivan's cheeks to go warm. There were some things you didn't want to know about your chosen family. 

He waited a moment until the sounds from outside led him to believe that they had resumed ordinary unpacking and storing shit away. Only then he put the tools aside, covered everything so that his cat Rodya could not throw anything down, and left the room. 

The first person he met was Boris, who had apparently been ordered by Yuriy to load their dirty laundry directly into the washing machine. 

"Did one of the meteors hit you right in the face, or what happened there?" he wanted to know, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom and nodding his head towards Boris's black eye. 

He just grinned cheerfully and shrugged. "Was more of a comet." 

Ivan glared at him, but that didn't make Boris start to make any more sense. Instead, he just whistled to himself as he scooped laundry into the machine and reached for the washing powder. Shaking his head, Ivan broke away from him and went to find Yuriy. 

He found him in the living room, busily unpacking bags and sorting through the contents. Yuriy looked well, Ivan noted, almost as if he had slept well for a few nights. When Ivan squatted down next to him, he looked up and gave him a fleeting smile. 

"Did Boris get into another fight in a bar?" Ivan wanted to know. 

"Nope, that was Kai," Yuriy said without batting an eyelash and pressed a brown, tied-up package into Ivan's hand. "Here, I got that for you." 

"Kai?" repeated Ivan, blinking while he weighed the package in his hand. "What is it?" 

"A meteorite piece they found at the impact site. And yes, they had a fight, but it's all good now." 

"Y’all are crazy," Ivan noted, rising. "Thanks for the rock." 

"Meteorite," Yuriy corrected, but was already back to rummaging through the gym bag. "You're welcome." 

As his sweater slipped from his shoulder, Ivan discovered, much to his chagrin, some dark love bites in the crook of his neck which he took as a sign to retreat. On his way back to his watch, he stopped as he passed the kitchen. Kai Hiwatari was sitting at the kitchen table with a busted lip in Yuriy's sweater, glasses with thick lenses and black frames on his purple-squashed nose, typing busily away on his MacBook. 

"Hiwatari?" asked Ivan, secretly wishing for Sergei to come over to have someone normal at his side and inwardly cursing the fact that Seryosha had a date. 

Kai raised his hand in greeting without looking up from the screen. Yuriy pushed past Ivan into the kitchen and gave Kai's shoulder a cursory squeeze before starting to put on a pot of tea. Kai looked at his back for a moment, smiling pensively, then turned back to the MacBook. Yuriy hummed as he took the tea from the shelf. They, much like Boris, seemed strangely happy, strangely at ease. 

"Is he ... staying for dinner?" asked Ivan slowly. 

"Yes," Yuriy said, turning his head and looking at him with bright, laughing eyes. "He's staying."


End file.
